How to recover/reinstall windows (8/8.1) when I cannot get into BIOS

[jackymg]

Almost all new shiny laptops these days are shipped with Windows 8/8.1. There is no way to get into BIOS without booting into windows first. Now, this is my first encounter of this problem. I wish someone could help me on this

My friend's laptop with Windows 8 (or 8.1, cannot remember) pre-installed. Its windows update automatically update and restart the PC. BUT it screwed up when boot up. Ending up it this loop booting up, found a problem, restart, back to Acer splash screen, found a problem, restart.

Never dealt with any of the UEFI / win 8.1 before. I was forced to take out the HDD, backup the data, then wipe the hold HDD out, covert it from GPT to MBR. throw it into another computer with BIOS and boot from CD/DVD, installing Win 7 back. (and only God knows if that will work once I put it back into the Acer chassis.)

I wonder if there is a way to get round this (coz my friend lost his Acer recovery CD/DVD).

Thanks all in advance.

=============================
[Update]

So, just tried, not working after I installed the Win 7 on another computer then move the HDD back to the Acer chassis.

I believe that's down to BIOS vs UEFI stuffs. The screen just shows Operating System not found.

HELP!!! +_+

 

[jackymg]

Found the way to do this.

Got another Win 8.1 laptop, created a recovery media (Thumb drive or SD card), boot from USB and then change the boot mode from UEFI to Legacy BIOS.

Once saved and restarted, it finally boot into Win 7 .

I didn't notice the UEFI thing before I gone through all these hustle. Otherwise, I imagine I could have just create this boot-up USB drive and recover from there. Sigh...

 

[PhatLloyd]

Create a bootable usb. To do this you will need Rufus usb tool (link below) and a Win7 ISO image. Doing this will also give you the option of format which you could do.